Wood Ducks win three of four against Carolina League leader Buies Creek

Sunday

Jul 30, 2017 at 5:53 PMJul 30, 2017 at 5:56 PM

Junious Smith III / Sports Editor

It wouldn’t be the Wood Ducks without a comeback win.

The DEWDs won three of four against the Buies Creek Astros, including a 6-5 victory Sunday. All of the Woodies’ wins came after late-inning rallies, allowing the Wood Ducks (18-19) to get within six games of the top-seeded Astros (24-13).

“We played with a lot of heart and energy (Sunday) — the whole series really,” Down East manager Howard Johnson said. “It seemed like the guys locked in and played good baseball. If our pitching continues to do a nice job and our guys start swinging the bats in good situations, we can put a nice run together.”

The Wood Ducks struck in the bottom of the third as Matt Lipka continued his torrid pace with an RBI single. The Astros tried to recover in the top of the fourth with one-out singles from Taylor Jones, Anthony Hermelyn and Randy Cesar to load the bases, but Emerson Martinez struck out Alex De Goti and coaxed an Anibal Sierra grounder to keep the DEWDs ahead 1-0.

Lipka would add his sixth RBI in three games with a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the fifth and Carlos Garay — who had his franchise-record 15-game hitting streak snapped Saturday — hit an RBI single to put the Wood Ducks ahead 3-0.

Buies Creek’s would explode in the top of the seventh inning. A 2-run single from Yordan Alvarez and a Jake Rogers sacrifice fly tied the score before Hermelyn’s run-scoring double and Cesar’s sacrifice put the Astros ahead 5-3.

The Wood Ducks refused to wilt, getting RBI singles from Josh Morgan and Ledarious Clark in the bottom of the seventh to tie the game before getting the go-ahead run in the eighth. A two-out single from Preston Scott and Evan Van Hoosier walk set up Josh Altmann, who jumped on the first pitch. Altmann grounded to short, but the ball took a wild bounce, allowing Scott to score for the 6-5 lead.

“In that situation, I was just looking for a pitch to hit,”Altmann said. “Unfortunately, it ended up on the ground but it found a spot where it took a hop and we took the lead. It felt good to help the team there and then, we got back on defense and Scottie (Williams) shut it down in the ninth.”

Williams pitched two innings to get the win, allowing just one hit in the process.

In Saturday’s 4-1 game, Buies Creek put its first five batters on base in the top of the second, starting with Taylor Jones’ leadoff single. Anthony Hermelyn and Randy Cesar walked to load the bases and Alex De Goti’s RBI single brought in the first run of the game. Spencer Johnson followed with a bases-loaded walk and although Matt Lipka would later make a spectacular catch in centerfield on a Myles Straw fly, another run scored to make it 3-0.

Down East would answer in the bottom of the third with Matt Lipka’s RBI single to bring home Josh Altmann, but Buies Creek got it back in the top of the fifth with a run-scoring hit by Jones for the 4-1 advantage.

From there, the Astros pitching was too much for the DEWDs to overcome. Starting pitcher Hector Perez scattered eight hits in 6 1/3 innings with Justin Ferrell throwing 2 2/3 of no-hit baseball.

The Wood Ducks will travel to Zebulon to face Carolina in a three-game series before four at Lynchburg.

Junious Smith III can be reached at 252-559-1078 and Junious.Smith@Kinston.com. Follow him on Twitter and Snapchat at @JuniousSmithIII.